Dear Editor,
The much-coveted Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) has been rolled out by the Modi government. It is not unusual for the opposition political parties to criticize anything that the ruling party does. Criticisms command value only when good things are appreciated and bad works are criticized. Criticism loses its value when everything is criticized. Critics of CAA have half-knowledge about it. The object of CAA is to accord citizenship to the persecuted Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Parsis and Christians in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh. The point of objection of the critics is that Muslims have been discriminated against. They fail to understand or feign to not understand that the Muslims community does not face persecution from their own community countries. Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh are the Islamic countries. If the Muslims can face persecution in the Islamic countries, where else can they be safe? How can they be expected to be safe in any non-Islamic country? It is altogether a different matter that Hindus of India are quite tolerant of people belonging to other faiths. But that does not merit citizenship to the Muslims coming from Muslims country. The opposition parties would not like to accept this stark truth. If Hindus face persecution in India, can they be expected to be safe in non-Hindu countries? Sharad Pawar’s remarks that CAA will disturb religious harmony in the country make no sense. RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav says “I am a Hindu. I oppose CAA because it’s a black law”. Has Tejashwi who claims that he is Hindu forgotten that his father Lalu Prasad Yadav, being a Hindu, stopped the Ram Rath Yatra of L.K. Advani and arrested him? His party is and was staunch opponent of Ram Mandir in Ayodhya. Sitaram Yechuri of CPM says that the rules are utilized for some electoral gains. Every party will do or undo anything for electoral gains only. No party should be singled out for it. Congress leader Rahul Gandhi shouts that he would not allow CAA in Assam, come what may. AICC President Mallikarjuna Kharge says that the society is being divided on the basis of religion. Did he forget that Jawaharlal was instrumental in dividing the nation on the basis of religion for the sake of power? Samajawadi Chief Akhilesh Yadav says “It is a game of distraction”. He complains that lakhs of citizens gave up their citizenship of the country during the 10-year rule. Those who do not want to live in India will give up their citizenship. Foreigners who want Indian citizenship will come and have come to India. It does not mean that those who have renounced Indian citizenship have faced any persecution in India and those who have come and settled in India have faced persecution in their own country. Between 2011 to 2022, the average number of Indians giving up citizenship has been reportedly put at 1,38,620. Who was in power from 2011 to 2013 and partly in 2014? It was the Congress-led UPA that was in power. Renouncement and acquisition of Indian citizenship is a continuing process. No government can prevent it. Asaduddin Owaisi, AIMIM chief has termed the CAA unconstitutional. He views that the CAA has been notified to trouble the Muslims. The CAA does not empower the Indian government to deport the already living Muslims in India. It is a deliberate attempt by Owaisi to pick hole in the CAA. Mamata Banerjee has vowed that she would not implement CAA in Bengal. Is Bengal not an integral part of India? Or is Bengal the personal property of Mamata Banerjeee? Does she think that she will be the Chief Minister forever in Bengal? Power comes and power goes. While criticism is part of democratic feature, non-cooperation with the Central government is not so. Congress has questioned the timing of notifying CAA. No time is inauspicious to bring the necessary laws in times of need. If Congress thinks that the CAA is bid to manage headlines after Supreme Court’s severe strictures on electoral bonds, how come that BJP had passed CAA four years back whereas the Supreme Court has nixed electoral bonds now? The Muslim population has grown from 24.8 per cent to 34.2 per cent from 1951 to 2011 in Assam whereas it is 19.4 per cent to 27 per cent in Bengal in the same period. With their unjust criticisms at everything, the opposition parties are proving that they are fit to be more in the opposition benches.
K.V. Seetharamaiah
